5 Great Session Beers to Drink Throughout March Madness

The madness has begun! These first few days of the NCAA tournament are make-or-break for the teams involved, but for the viewer, they’re a warmup, and maintaining a marathon-not-sprint philosophy is critical. You can literally watch games nonstop from lunch to bedtime, so you need to pace yourself. Sure, it ain’t a March Madness party without some beers, but if you pass out at the beginning of the second half after your third pint of Green Flash West Coast IPA, you’ll end up with nothing but a Sharpie penis on your face and the shame of missing the greatest buzzer beater of all time.

What you need is a great session beer. Popularized by the British, who know a thing or two about 10-pint nights, this genre of low-alcohol brews (the precise definition is debated, but they should be at least below 5%) is all about the slow burn. You can drink them all day and maintain a pleasant buzz without getting shitfaced. During the Big Dance, that’s exactly what you need.

These days, more and more breweries embracing the appeal of session beers and dialing back the booze on some of their tastiest creations. Here are five of my favorites that I’d recommend to any college hoops-loving beer drinker.

The madness has begun! These first few days of the NCAA tournament are make-or-break for the teams involved, but for the viewer, they're a warmup, and maintaining a marathon-not-sprint philosophy is critical. You can literally watch games nonstop from lunch to bedtime, so you need to pace yourself. Sure, it ain't a March Madness party without some beers, but if you pass out at the beginning of the second half after your third pint of Green Flash West Coast IPA, you'll end up with nothing but a Sharpie penis on your face and the shame of missing the greatest buzzer beater of all time.
What you need is a great session beer. Popularized by the British, who know a thing or two about 10-pint nights, this genre of low-alcohol brews (the precise definition is debated, but they should be at least below 5%) is all about the slow burn. You can drink them all day and maintain a pleasant buzz without getting shitfaced. During the Big Dance, that's exactly what you need.
These days, more and more breweries embracing the appeal of session beers and dialing back the booze on some of their tastiest creations. Here are five of my favorites that I'd recommend to any college hoops-loving beer drinker.

Founders All-Day IPA

From: Grand Rapids, MI
Style: IPA
ABV: 4.7%
Website:founders brewing.com
This Michigan outfit has produced plenty of big beers in the past, including the beloved Kentucky Breakfast Stout and Curmudgeon Old Ale. But it has captured the zeitgeist for gentler beers perfectly with this toned-down IPA, delivering the bitterness hop heads crave at a fraction of the alcohol. This is what beer nerds like to call a "lawnmower beer"—but it's also a damn fine armchair beer when you're trying to watch eight straight hours of hoops. It's a spring seasonal, so gobble up as much of the stuff as you can find.

21st Amendment Bitter American

From: San Francisco, CA
Style: Pale ale
ABV: 4.4%
Website: 21st-amendment.com
Even before you crack it open, this beer stands out for its tremendous can design, featuring a monkey in an astronaut suit. The stuff inside is pretty memorable as well, thanks to floral hops that dance over an impressively smooth malt body. With all that flavor, it's tough to believe that it's got about the same alcohol by volume as Bud.

Stone Brewing Co. Levitation Ale

From: Escondido, CA
Style: Amber ale
ABV: 4.4%
Website:stonebrew.com
From its gargoyle-themed logo to its no-holds-barred creations like Arrogant Bastard, Stone isn't neccesarily known for subtlety. But this stellar beer proves that the brewery isn't just hiding behind hop bombs and imperialized stouts. In fact, Levitation might be Stone's most impressive achievement: a hoppy amber ale that punches so far beyond its weight class, it's kind of like the Cinderella 16 seed that makes the Final Four.

Anchor Small Beer

From: San Francisco, CA
Style: English bitter
ABV: 3.3%
Website:anchorbrewing.com
Okay, now we're talking really sessionable—at 3.3% ABV, this beer makes the possibility of getting faced before you're full pretty slim. It'll leave you clear-headed, yet still satisfied that you're drinking a beer. And what an delightfully strange beer it is: Anchor Steam is well-loved for its heritage and its commitment to old-school techniques, and this English-style bitter (or more like a baby bitter) fits neatly into the catalog. Starting with the same grain mash that forms the backbone for its burly Old Foghorn barleywine, the brewery uses the "second runnings" to make this lighter, gentler table beer. It's not for everyone, but if you like to taste the grains in a beer, and don't mind a bit of yeasty tang, it's an interesting throwback to an old British brewer's trick (called parti-gyle, if you want to impress your friends).

Lambrucha

From: Wambeek, Belgium
Style: Lambic/kombucha
ABV: 3.5%
Website:belgianexperts.com
This oddity, dreamt up by importers Vanberg & DeWulf, is one of my favorite weird beers in the world: a mashup of a lambic (a style of Belgian ale that gets its sour qualities from wild yeast used during fermentation) and kombucha, that fermented tea that people who shop at the farmers market like. Some would argue that the flavor is too aggressive to be "sessionable" (in addition to being low-alcohol, session beers also tend to have that elusive tasty-but-forgettable quality that helps you avoid palate fatigue). But in my mind it's the perfect March Madness beer: super bubbly, super tangy, and exceptionally refreshing thanks to the sourness, with the added bonus that you're drinking something with some health benefits. Because let's face it, there's nothing at all healthy about watching basketball all day.

Latest News

Now Trending

FIRST WE FEAST participates in various affiliate marketing programs, which means FIRST WE FEAST gets paid commissions on purchases made through our links to retailer sites. Our editorial content is not influenced by any commissions we receive.